WHAT IS AT STAKE

Amid all the back and forth over the Obama Budget, Rush Limbaugh, the
C-PAC meeting, the Jindal Meltdown, the GOP opposition in Congress and
the new leftward direction we as a nation are taking, no one has yet
raised another important - political, economic and historic -
consideration:

What happens if, after the Obama Plan is adopted and becomes law -
which it will in large part with a few tweaks here and there - and
then by 2011 or early 2012 the economy starts to rebound?

• First of all, President Obama and his crack PR/campaign team will
take all the credit and proclaim him a transformational, historic
President - and he would most likely be re-elected;

• The Democratic Congress will also stay in the majority;

• But equally as important - massive government spending, trillion
dollar annual deficits, a new, more interventionist federal government
- will be seen as the reason the economy is recovering - even if it
was not!

• (After all, at some point the economy will bottom out and begin - on
its own - to rebound and recover. The Obama Plan may actually hinder
and delay the recovery. But we will never know the causes and effects
- if it recovers during Obama’s first term);

• Liberal economists will be vindicated!

• They and their political followers will all proclaim, “Big
Government works!”

• Historians will also proclaim Obama the Second Coming of FDR - and,
in fact, in retrospect the New Deal will again be credited with ending
the Great Depression (an interpretation that has lately come under
fire);

• The Republican Party will be consigned to the back bench for a long,
long time;

• Conservatism - or what has lately come to be called conservatism (it
hasn’t been truly conservative since the Bushes seized control of the
GOP - oh why did Ronnie Reagan ever pick G.H.W. Bush in 1980!!!??? -
will be blamed for creating the Bush Depression; we will not see a
resurgence of the conservative movement for years, maybe even decades;

• Western European- style socialism will be the model; cradle-to-grave
government programs will be the order of the day;

• And all of this because the economy shows signs of a rebound - even
if the Stimulus and Obama Budgets have nothing to do with the
recovery. After all, how does anyone really know why the economy
recovers?

• In 1984, Reagan took credit for the recovery - Morning in America -
and attributed it to his massive 3-year 25% across-the-board tax cuts.
He was not only massively re-elected, but Reaganomics (supply-side tax
cuts to spur economic activity) became the accepted lifeblood of the
GOP and has remained so until today.

• But it might have been Fed Chairman Paul Volker’s inflation-
squeezing tightening that was the real reason for the 1983/1984
recovery. We will never know for sure;

All of this is what is at stake here.

And the Republican Party and conservative movement - they are not
necessarily one and the same - can do nothing politically to affect
the outcome. We are on the side lines now - thanks to Bush and his
acolytes and lackeys - including some famous radio talk show hosts who
checked their objectivity at the door and became suck-ups to the Bush
White House - who drove the GOP right over the cliff.

If the basic tenet of conservative thought is correct - that massive
government makes things worse, not better - then the Obama Plan will
fail. And he will then fail politically. And then all of the above
will not matter.

But we have a long four years ahead of us.

"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with
this notice and hyperlink intact."